Sunday, 29 April 2007

It's finally here, my long-awaited trip home!! I'll have a brand-new nephew to spoil rotten (and pinch), several bloggers to meet, lots of food to stuff my face with and lots of pictures to take! It goes without saying that I'm bursting with excitement, but life being as unfair as it is, something always has to mar my quest for happiness... Thus I have no choice but to start off this post with another mega-rant unrelated to food (well, there will be food at the end! :) ).

Ever since I booked my plane tickets, I had been counting down the days to the 29th - the date of my flight (but of course I only arrive in Singapore on the 30th). Last Sunday, I thought I'd check out Sistic's website (Singapore's entertainment ticketing booth) to see if any interesting concerts were in store... Hoping against hope, I typed "Sonu" (for Sonu Nigam) in the search field. My heart raced when there actually was a result!! I started shrieking when I saw the date and was gushing to myself in excitement that I'm going to rush from the airport, dump my bags, freshen up, and dart off to the concert in a yet-to-be-acquired hot pink sari. I was already looking at seating arrangements and trying to decide where I wanted to sit when I looked at the search result again and it sank in - 29th April, 7.30pm. Wait a minute, that would be 1.30pm in France, Sunday, when I'd still be languishing in the boarding area at CDG instead of touching down! I briefly failed to realise that I'd only arrive the day AFTER the concert! Aaaaarggghhh!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

My hubby was suitably puzzled when the excited shrieking segued into head-banging (and not in a classy heavy metal way), and took a look at the screen. Long uneasy silence. He promptly reminded me that I'd already seen Sonu 6 months earlier and even managed to grab his hand when I crept up to the stage. I was even seated close enough to the stage to take such pictures:

So what? Even though I can watch snatches of his concerts on Youtube, and even if he sang exactly the same songs (which I'm sure he will), something like that is frustrating enough to justify a hunger strike!! To say that I'm really and truly pissed is tantamount to saying I only "like" Sonu Nigam. Sigh. All I'm hoping for now is that he will do some sight-seeing and that I'll bump into him in the streets of Singapore, haha... (3 years ago, on another trip home, the IIFA Awards happened to be held there, and I saw Sanjay Dutt in the flesh, entering his hotel! I was lucky that the year after, it was held in Amsterdam, just 3 hours away from where I am, so got my fill of all my favourite stars!)

Other consolation - Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy will also be in S'pore in May, and their performance will be a week later. I might just make it if I can find someone to go with me to drum up the hooting decibels, heh heh. Somehow hooting at a concert when you go alone seems slightly mental to me. :)

It has been unseasonally sunny here, so I could not stay mad for long. Besides, I'd gone to the market last Sunday and found some beautiful sun-gorged fruit, so ended up doing this to them:

I've always been in awe of people with hands so deft mere fruit become masterpieces, and I suppose if I won the lottery and didn't have to work, I'd flood this blog with nothing but pictures of my attempts at carving, heh heh..

As for this week, hmmm, funny how comments from some of you on my last post dug into my conscience.. ;-) apparently, most of you assumed that I was clearing my freezer to make way for new dishes I would whip up and freeze to nourish that hubby while I'm away for a month. The original plan was for him to go out and buy microwavable meals, which I was in fact making space for, but after all the undeserved praises heaped on me about what a good wife I was perceived to be, I felt like pure scum accepting all that credit on credit, and had to do up a few can't-go-wrong favourites of his that were simple and pretty much made from other processed food, so please, don't make me go back to feeling like scum. I didn't really cook this weekend, I merely assembled various ingredients to arrive at a more elaborate end, heh heh. :)

The pies - tuna and ham & tomato

Gnocchi - chorizo and 2-cheese & ham

What I did not make from scratch: pie crust, tomato sauce and gnocchi.What I did do: cut ham, tomatoes and chorizo; cook gnocchi; half-fill 1 ice-cream tub with bottled tomato sauce and another with cream, blue cheese and grana padano. As for the tarts, I followed Michael Jackson's advice to "Just Beat It", haha.

There's not much "how to" for me to share with you here that doesn't sound like previous posts with tarts, but the tuna tart is one of my hubby's favourites, so apart from the crust, the rest of the ingredients are : mustard (to coat the base of the pie crust), tuna+lemon juice+plain yoghurt and/or cream+grated gruyère or emmental+eggs.

I might not blog much during my vacation, but keep writing! :) Thanks for your encouragement, everyone!

ha ha ha...ROFL... girl, u know that this time IIFA is in UK;) and its in JUNE? do u want me to reserve a ticket for u? he he he... i am going only if i get to watch an item number by hrithik;)grrr... indian idol is starting from may 5th and NO Sonu:( how mean... so u r already in s'pore? wow...have fun sweetie:) ~hugs~

I think I agree with your husband - the tuna tart looks like a winner! And you're so good to cook and freeze food for him while you're away! Mine lives on frozen food (the kind you get at the supermarket frozen section!) when I'm away! Have a great trip!

HI EVERYONE!! Thanks for writing! I have to get used to the QWERTY keyboard here, so typing is painfully slow!

hey ecl, i sent you 2 smses since i arrived, didn't u get them? write me if you see this so that i know you're in s'pore! :)

Asha dear, thank you... I have yet to bump into Sonu, sigh.. Me, Bollywood star-struck?! Haha, why do you say that? ;-) I even have an old phonecard that I refuse to throw away with Big B on it advertising KBC! :)

Victor, you've seen his pictures and you seem to have a digital camera on the ready, so I hope you'll tell me that YOU bumped into him and YOU've helped take a few shots of him on my behalf!!! :) Or else, dun fren you!

Tiger, heh heh, you know me so well! I froze half of everything except the gnocchis, of which I froze all. Yep, these are Bollywood guys I'm talking about, you know how there's always music in those films? Well, Sonu Nigam is a singer (very sexy voice!!), Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are a trio of composers and Sanjay Dutt is an actor.

Dear Sandeepa, haha, thank you... sigh... if Sonu is a foodie, too, I wouldn't mind being his chef for free if he would just sing for me everyday, haha...

Oh Supriya, you are so funny, hahah!!! Yes, I do know that this year's IIFA is in Yorkshire, but I suspect I might be too broke after this trip home to attend, unless I win the lottery, haha! Tell me about it! I was SO looking forward to seeing Hrithik shake his bon-bon in Amsterdam, but nothing!! Chhee! I felt so cheated! Fortunately, there was my other favourite guy (Salman) doing his thing - stripping!! Hahaha!

II without Sonu? What a tragedy! Yes, dear, arrived safely in s'pore monday via colombo and am off to bangkok in a few hours for some serious shopping with my mom! Lage raho Shilpa! ;-)

Thank you Wokandspoon! :) heh heh, do you habitually leave your husband to feed himself for a whole month? It's my first time doing so for such an extended period, but I suppose I should do it more often so that the guilt wears off, haha!! Am having a fun trip so far, but haven't met a single one of my friends for the moment because I'm addicted to my 6-month-old nephew! btw, my hubby loves the frozen food aisle, but I'm the cynical sort who think it's junk, haha.. of course, that opinion conveniently changes when I'm in a hurry or in no mood to cook! :)

Thank you Sharmi! You know, I'd love to teach you, but I'm terrible at explaining details, so I'll be more than happy to show you the sites from where I got my ideas... some of them are in Japanese, and I don't read Japanese, but I think you can guess on some of the pages what they're trying to say :) I hope you try carving too! You seem really good with art and craft, so I'm sure you can do better than me! :)

Hey Shilpa, since you seem star struck, I can inform you that the director of Munnabhai is related to my hubby, I know Vidya Balan as she stays in my neighbourhood in Mumbai and is from my school, Shamita Shetty was my classmate in school, so was Shilpa Shetty and playback singer Gayatri Iyer (Kunal Ganjawala's wife).... so much for my filmi connections!!! :)

hello shilpa,I have pas grand’chose to say. just push the chansonnette from france (i use an AZERTY keyboard and i'm aussi slow as you). I hope, my dear shilpa, you’re right where you are. you are? - what a philosophical question, isn’t it ;-) I’m looking forward to seeing you (don’t make you some idea about my gentillesse, I remind me this grammar syntax and I want to use it for the brightness, le lustre ; “to look forward to + ing”. as mandira said, your pies look delicious.Bye bie